


Something Borrowed, Something New

by sparksofwrite



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Library, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 08:12:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1597859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparksofwrite/pseuds/sparksofwrite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You haven’t gotten to the best part yet,” Ymir says.</p><p>“What happens?” She tries her best to stay calm. Having a conversation with a hot person is like driving a car without brakes— unpredictable and uncontrollable, not to mention liable to kill her.</p><p>Did she just call Ymir hot?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Borrowed, Something New

**Author's Note:**

> The book is "The Knife of Never Letting Go," by Patrick Ness. Also, please don’t look at me, this is what I come up with in two hours of writing. 
> 
> Thanks for scottmmccaall on tumblr for the prompt :)

Christa’s volunteer job at the library isn’t just a resume builder.

 

Twice a week she sits in that squeaky, too-high chair behind the circulation desk, checking books out or in, doing homework or reading for three hours at a time. Two-thirty to five-thirty in the fall means she has to rush there from her last block in school, and home from the library before it gets dark, but it’s always worth it. Halfway through her shift is approximately when the elementary school lets out, and by four o’clock the library is overrun with the most well-behaved, well-read of the bunch. Christa would be lying if she said she didn’t identify with them.

 

The rest of the library patrons are relatively unremarkable, and mostly middle-aged. But there is one who could prove interesting.

 

She had a garbled mess of a surname that Christa couldn’t remember after handing her library card back that one time. She does recall that her first name was Ymir, however that was pronounced, maybe with an E at the beginning. She had taken out some YA novel Christa had never heard of, or seen anyone remove. The next week, it was checked back in, freshly dog-eared and smelling a little like cigarettes. Christa had taken it out for herself immediately.

 

Christa peers over the top of that same book in what she hopes is an inconspicuous way, taking in the gum-cracking teenager at the closest table. She hasn’t seen her in school, but she always gets here shortly after Christa with a book bag and homework. Her table is strewn with textbooks, notebooks and pens with bitten and chewed caps. She has an iPod, but Christa can’t imagine how she manages to concentrate when the music in her ears is loud enough that everyone around can hear. But she scribbles away, seemingly undeterred by the thundering bass and screaming vocals.

 

She always stays later than Christa, but she finishes her homework a long time before. She stays and reads, pausing occasionally to scroll through her music library.  Christa wonders if Ymir has something she’d prefer not to go home to. She wonders if Ymir is like her in that respect.

 

Ymir looks up suddenly, and Christa blushes fiercely as she pretends she had only been glancing over, and had most certainly not been checking her out. Looking back at the page, she attempts to read the next lines, but the words don’t make sense. All she can see in her mind are the brown eyes that had met her own blue ones.

 

Hesitantly, she tilts her gaze over the book again. She gasps. Ymir is leaning against the counter, her elbows halfway into Christa’s personal space. The books and the now-silent iPod are still at her table.

 

“What part are you at?” Ymir asks.

 

“H-huh?” Christa squeaks.

 

She either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care about Christa’s sudden deer-in-the-headlights expression. “That book was pretty good. Where are you in it?”

 

“Oh. Um,” Christa glances back at the page, reading the next couple of lines. “The girl just talked for the first time. Her name is Viola, apparently.”

 

“You haven’t gotten to the best part yet,” Ymir says.

 

“What happens?” She tries her best to stay calm. Having a conversation with a hot person is like driving a car without brakes— unpredictable and uncontrollable, not to mention liable to kill her.

 

Did she just call Ymir hot?

 

“You’ll see.” She drums her fingers on the counter. “Hey, do you know if this library has the second book in that series? I couldn’t find it in the YA section.”

 

“Um…” Christa dog-ears her page and sets the book down, swiveling her chair toward the computer. “What’s it called?”

 

“ _The Ask and the Answer_.”

 

“Hmm…” She types in the words. “It doesn’t look like it, but Sina Public does. Do you want to request it from there?”

 

“I’ll have to go over later and check it out. I’ll lend it to you when I’m done.”

 

“You will?”

 

“You’re gonna want to read it, trust me. And it’s not like we won’t see each other.”

 

“Do you come here every day?” She can’t stop herself from asking, and a paranoid piece of her brain wonders if she’s prying.

 

Ymir does not share this thought of hers. “Yeah. You’re only here Tuesdays and Thursdays, right?”

 

“I could come here more often if you…” She freezes. “Um. I mean… I just work here those days. Sometimes I come in other times.” _You are literally such an idiot,_ her internal abuse starts up, not for the first time today. _Just shut up and stop embarrassing yourself._

 

Ymir grins, mercifully not commenting on her awkwardness. But then she says, “Well, I should probably get your number, just in case,” and Christa’s world stops like a car crash at eighty miles an hour.

 

“M-my number?” She stammers.

 

“Yeah.” But even as she watches, apprehension creeps into Ymir’s expression, and a blush makes her freckles stand out. “I mean, like… only if you want to.”

 

“Y-yeah! No, yeah, I just…” She takes a paper bookmark from the pile at the edge of the counter, scribbling the digits on it along with the words _Christa Renz_. “Here,” she says, pushing it towards Ymir. When she picks it up, Christa notices fingernails bitten bloody.

 

All nervousness is gone, replaced with ten times as much confidence. “Thanks. I’ll text you,” she says. “My name is Ymir.”

 

It’s not pronounced with an E sound, then. “Okay. I’m Christa.”

 

“Sweet.” She looks past Christa, at the clock behind her. “Don’t you usually leave, like, fifteen minutes before now?”

 

“What?” Christa spins her chair around. It’s five-forty-five. “Oh. Yeah. Don’t know where Sasha is, she’s usually here by now to, uh…” She talks as she gathers her things and stuffs them into her book bag. “To take over. Sorry. I do have to go.”

 

“It’s fine.” She moves out of the way as Christa slides off the chair and heaves her bag onto her shoulder. Christa moves out from behind the counter, pushing the sign in front of the computer directing patrons downstairs for checkouts. “I’ll see you.”

 

“Yeah.” Christa smiles. Despite how tall Ymir is compared to her, she doesn’t feel quite so threatened anymore. “See you.” She waves as she leaves.

 

She’s halfway through her walk home when her phone buzzes in her pocket, and she tells herself that she only pulls it out so eagerly because it could be her parents. It’s an unknown number with the local area code, instead. “It’s Ymir ;),” it reads. The emoticon makes her heart race a little.

 

This could be something, she tells herself. This could be something good.

 

 

 


End file.
